Pedantry squared FYI, but because the United States calls their provinces "states", it's helpful to disambiguate by adding the word "nation".

Furthermore, since a nation is a group of people bound together by shared culture, values, religion, language, etc., while a state is a piece of land with a defined border, then nations and states are not necessarily the same thing.

A "nation-state" is the intersection of the two, where cultural boundaries align with political and geographical boundaries, and not a redundant synonym of "state".